Luke 1:68-79

I don't know about you but sometimes I just can't shut up. Can you imagine not being able to say a word for 9 months? I know some people who would explode if it happened to them. Well, that's what happened to Zechariah in the Bible. He was a member of the Levite clan, the priests, and his turn to serve in the temple came up. He and his wife were devoted but they had no children which in that day and time probably made people wonder.

While Zechariah was serving in the Temple an angel appeared to him. The angel told him that his wife would have a baby who would prepare the way for the messiah. The angel also told him that he would be named John. Zechariah didn't believe him. So the angel said he would not be able to speak until all that had taken place. So for nine months he was unable to talk until his wife Elizabeth had the baby and he was named John.

If you had been unable to talk for nine months what would you say? Would you have made a list of smart remarks and comments to make? Would you have a list of opinion to express? Would you complain that no one had given you a paper and pencil for 9 months? Of all the things he could have said, he praised God for sending a Savior. Jesus would not be born for six months, but Zechariah declared that John would prepare the way for the messiah. He told every one that God was sending light into the darkness. He broke the silence by proclaiming the grace and salvation of God.

It's about time to break the silence. We live in a world that dwells in darkness. Sure you go out at night and the artificial lights are so bright you can't see the sky. But it is artificial. People think that they are in the light in our society, but it is really an artificial light. It is a light that keeps them from seeing the real light in the darkness.

Have you ever gone out into the country? When you get away from the lights of the cities and towns you can see the stars at night. It's a beautiful light. But most people don't see it. All they see is at the spiritually artificial stuff that blinds them.

It is time for us to break the silence. The world needs to see the light of God in Christ. But too many people lose the real light of Christ in the artificial Christmas lights. They miss the gift of love and life from God in the rush to get the perfect gift for that someone. They lose the manger and the baby in all the other decorations and the hullabaloo of the season. So we who see it need to say something!

That's a bigger task than you might think. Remember Zechariah was a religious man. He was a priest! He led the people in worship in the temple. And an angel told him that the light of God was coming and that his son would prepare the way for it. Yet Zechariah didn't believe it.

If an angel can't convince a priest of the light, what hope do we have convincing a secular society? In Zechariah's day they had been waiting for the Messiah for centuries. They were conquered again and again and again. Israel was a pawn in the battles between the part of the Greek empire. Finally the Romans conquered them and kept the peace at the point of a sword.

So the darkness, spiritual as well as political, was deep. But the angel helped Zechariah. He silenced him long enough to make him look. And Zechariah saw his elderly barren wife become great with child. And he saw a baby born to them and he saw the light! And when he finally did say something people listened.

We have some help in breaking the silence. Zechariah had an angel to help him see it and tell others. But we have the genuine article! Jesus the light of the world dwells in us. He will enable us to tell the world.

This is a dark world. But Jesus' light is shining in it. People's lives are being transformed by the grace and forgiveness and love of God. You have seen it! You have experienced it!

Just tell people what God has done for you. Have you seen the light? Have you experienced forgiveness and grace? Have you known eternal and abundant life? Then break the silence and tell the world.

How can we do that? Follow the example of Zechariah. Just praise God. Give him the glory. Especially in this season.

Share his love with others. You're out in the crowds. Just love your neighbor in the Wal-Mart or Target check out line. Be gracious to other people searching for parking places at the mall.

You many not have an angel to help you. But you have Jesus the light of the world living in you. Let his light shine through you. Break the silence!

Malachi 2:17 - 3:5

(Sung to the tune of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town") You better watch out you better not cry you better not pout I'm telling you why: Jesus Christ is coming to town. Well that isn't exactly what the prophet Malachi said to Israel. But it's pretty close. He was telling them to look out because the Lord would come soon to judge. He was saying that God would send a messenger to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. We understand John the Baptist to be that messenger who prepared the way for the coming of Jesus.

But let's take a closer look at the context to what Malachi is saying. Malachi wrote these prophesies during a period when Israel was in captivity in Babylon about 500 years before Jesus. Because Israel had been unfaithful God had allowed them to be conquered by the Babylonians. The best and the Brightest of Israel were carried off into captivity.

It was during this time Israel was reexamining itself. Malachi wrote on the nature of God's love and justice. He prophesied about the sins of Israel and God's judgment upon it. He also declares that God will forgive if the people will turn to Him.

Malachi may have been writing 2,500 years ago, but it still speaks to us today. In our passage Malachi says that the people have tired the Lord with their words. "What words?" they ask. So Malachi tells them.

They have called the right wrong and the wrong right. That certainly applies today. People are constantly calling what is wrong right. We live in a day when living in sin is called an "alternate lifestyle" as if it were just a different way of living. And civilians killed in military attacks are called collateral damage as if there was no death involved.

Not only did they pervert right and wrong, but they were also questioning the justice of God. They were questioning it because the way they were being treated seemed unjust. But people do that today. They see the murder of innocents and the hands of terrorists today and they question if their really is a just God in charge of the universe. More often we look at our own smaller problems and question God righteousness in letting us suffer.

Malachi responds to this last question: "Where is the God of Justice?" He says that the God of Justice is coming. But he is not coming the way they would expect. The Israelites in captivity would think that God was coming to bring Justice to the Babylonians and punish them for what they had done to the Israelites. But the prophet Malachi says God is coming to bring judgment on them.

He said the Lord is coming like a fullers' soap; like a refiner's fire. Fullers soap was a lye based soap that would remove stains chemically. But it was so strong you would not want to use it to wash your hands. A refiner's fire uses high temperatures to burn away impurities.

So when the God of Justice come he will come to purify and cleanse His people. Israel should expect God to scrub then clean. You know when you refinish a piece of wood you often time need to sand off the old finish. When the God of justice come he will sand the Israelites clean of their impurities. When a refiner refines silver he or she turns up the temperature and melts the silver and then burns off its impurities. In the same way God will turn up the heat on Israel and burn away their impurities.

Back in Malachi's day God's people were looking for a Messiah to come and deliver them. Malachi told them that God's himself was coming to bring justice. He told them that God would send a messenger to prepare the way. That messenger was John the Baptist. And Jesus' birth was the fulfillment of that prophesy that God would come to purify His people. Through his death and resurrection God purifies us.

Just as they looked for the coming of a Messiah we await his second coming. We know that he will come to judge the world and to bring about peace. Let's just be careful we don't fall into the same trap that the people of Malachi's day did. They were so busy focusing on the injustices of their oppressors that they refused to see their own injustices.

The Lord of justice is coming. But he may be coming to first purify his people. It's like going to the dentists. You know they tell you to floss and brush and when you get your teeth cleaned it is painful to get all that plaque scraped off your teeth especially around the gums. I have found that if you actually brush and floss like they tell you to then the cleaning process is so much easer.

God is coming to clean up your spiritual hygiene. It might be a good idea to brush and floss our souls now. That way he won't have to be so rough when he comes.

This season of advent is a time of spiritual preparation for Christmas. The celebration of the coming of God is near. In the same way his return on clouds of glory is near. Let's take this opportunity to clean up our lives. Let us repent of our injustices instead of pointing to the injustices of others.

Then when he returns we will be ready.

Luke 3:1-6

Are you ready for Christmas? We put a lot of work into getting ready for Christmas. It seems like Melissa and I have already been preparing for a month and Christmas is still 18 days away. There are few among us who don't know that feeling. Let's go down the check list.

First there is decorating. We have to decorate our homes. Have you put up the lights? What about the greenery; and the stockings? Then there is the Christmas tree; that's a job. You have to pull out all those ornaments and put them on the tree. And the awful task of going through the strings of lights trying to replace all the burned out bulbs. And don't forget to display the nativity scene. No one is ready for Christmas until they have all their presents bought and wrapped. We spend hours shopping for just the right gifts to give to our friends and aunts and uncles. Even the most organized person, who makes a list of gifts to buy, has someone on their list who is hard to buy for. So you go to the mall hoping to receive some inspiration on what you can buy them.

Oh, don't forget those Christmas cards. You mean you haven't sent your cards yet? You better do that as soon as you get home. You know what the postal service says, "Mail those cards and packages early."

All that preparation for one day. But imagine what it would have been like without all that preparation. Let's imagine for a minuet that Christmas is not December 25th; instead it's tomorrow! None of us would be ready. We are all geared up to be ready for Dec. 25th. Oh maybe we could get things done this afternoon, but Christmas would be too soon and it just wouldn't be the same.

I will never forget the first year I went off to school. I had exams up to the 20th of December. I had done a little shopping and had the presents I needed. But I had been used to living in a house decorated for Christmas from Thanksgiving on. I was materially prepared for Christmas, but I was not emotionally prepared. Christmas snuck up on me that year and it just didn't seem right, it was too soon.

There is more to preparing for Christmas than getting the decorations out and wrapping the presents. Those are the material preparations. We also have to prepare emotionally. With every tree ornament or mantle decoration, with every Christmas present or nativity figurine we express another expectation, another hope for Christmas. Put all together, these numerous acts of preparation set that day up to be special. They are all part of a complex expression of the special ness of Christmas day.

In our Gospel reading today John is calling the people to prepare. John came out of the wilderness shouting, "Repent and prepare the way for the Lord." He is heralding the coming of a king, God's anointed, the Messiah. In the ancient world when a king decided to visit a part of his kingdom he would send someone ahead of him to announce the coming of the king. This herald would also instruct the people to prepare the roads and streets for the monarch's arrival. They should clean up the streets, fill in the potholes. They wouldn't want the King to remember them for the bumps in their roads. Of course the instruction to prepare the roads was a metaphor for preparing their community for the visit of a king. They were to make it look the best they could. Be ready to receive the king with the best accommodations they could provide.

Of course the king that John was heralding wasn't interested in inspecting their streets. Jesus didn't care if the streets had potholes. John was saying straighten out your lives in preparation for God's chosen King. Make the way straight for him to enter into your lives. Smooth out the places that would make his journey rough. Be ready to accommodate the King of kings. Repent and turn from your crooked ways and turn to God.

People were used to making their communities presentable for a king. They would decorate their houses and clean their streets. They would prepare a place for the king to stay and supplies so he could eat well. These were all material preparations for the coming of a king. John was speaking of spiritual preparation. John was saying make your lives presentable for the King of kings.

Are you ready for Christmas? I am not talking about decorations and shopping. I am talking about your hearts. You may be materially ready. You may have all the gifts bought. You may have all the decorations up. You may have mailed your Christmas cards. You may even be emotionally ready. But are you spiritually ready?

The Good News of Christmas is that Jesus Christ came into the world to give us life, and light and eternal joy. The prophet Malachi and John the Baptist told the people to prepare for his arrival. Just as they prepared for Jesus' arrival, we need to prepare to celebrate this anniversary of his coming. Even as we celebrate Christ's coming we remember that he promised to come again. Are we ready to receive him the next time he comes?

John's call to straighten out our lives is still valid. To be spiritually ready to celebrate Christ's coming we must straighten out our lives. To make way for Christmas, to make way for Christ, we must prepare our hearts to receive him. Otherwise when he arrives all the rooms will be taken by false idols. And once again he will be left outside to find lodging with the humble beasts.

Where does your life need straightening out? John came preaching a message of repentance. "Repent" means to turn away from, to change direction. To turn from sin we must first recognize it. Where is the sin on our lives? Where do we fall short of living out God's love. Do we worship Christ in all that we say and do. If there is any way that we fail to love God and our neighbor, no matter how small, it is a sin. It is impeding our spiritual preparations. Once sin is recognized we must turn from it, but we can't do that by ourselves. We must acknowledge before God that we are sinners and seek help to turn from that sin.

Are you spiritually ready for Christmas? Is your heart ready to receive a King? Is your life presentable for the King of kings? Look closely, we all have rough place that could be smoothed over and crooked ways that could use some straightening. Smooth them out and straighten them up, the King is coming!

Christmas is the celebration of the first coming of Christ. And it reminds us that he is coming again. 2,000 years ago people awaited the Messiah and John told them to be ready. We, who await the Messiah's return, ought to heed his warning. "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Repent and make your rough ways smooth."

Are you ready? Ready to celebrate his coming? Are you ready to receive him when he comes again? If not you better get ready because the time for getting ready is short. Make way, for Christmas is coming!

Luke 3:1-6

When did it all start? "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Iturae'a and Trachoni'tis, and Lysa'ni-as tetrarch of Abile'ne, in the high-priesthood of Annas and Ca'iaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechari'ah in the wilderness; and he went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." According to Bible Scholars it was about the year 28 AD.

Luke tries to be precise about the time. He refers to six different prominent figures from the Emperor in Rome to the High Priest in Jerusalem. This is significant because the God of Eternity had chosen to enter into time. The God of the universe was appearing at a particular place. The Kingdom of the Eternal Universal God was about to be manifest in a remote province of Rome at a particular point in time. Put Simply, Jesus was about to begin his public ministry.

But it really started long before that. Over 400 years before Malachi had said that God was sending a messenger to prepare the way. Over 200 years before that Isaiah had foreseen a voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord!" Of course they were both prophesying about John the Baptist who was chosen by God to prepare the way for Jesus. But it all started long before then.

When did it all start? It all started in the Beginning. I mean the Beginning beginning, as in Genesis. In the beginning God made the world and all that is in it including humanity. And all of it was good. The woman and the man walked with God in the Garden of Eden and they lived in peace and harmony with all creation.

That was the way God wanted it, but this changed. The man and woman chose to disobey and everything changed. Suddenly the humans were separated from God. Instead of being at peace they were in constant turmoil. Not only were they in turmoil with each other and world around them, they experienced an inner turmoil between the purpose God had created them for and their separation from God.

And from there things got worse. The people grew further and further from God. And because they were separated from God their turmoil with each other grew worse. As a result all forms of abuse and persecution were born. Crime after crime were committed. Murder and War came into being. And the inner turmoil grew worse. People began to hate themselves, or maybe to worship themselves. That is when it all began!

So what is the "it" I am talking about. It was God�s plan of salvation for all creation. From the beginning it was God�s plan for us to live in fellowship and harmony with Him and all creation. So God sought to set things right. But to do it God had to bridge the distance. Humanity had been separated and could not reach God so God reached out to us.

God sent his Son to become one of us. The royal heir of all heaven and earth came to live as a carpenter�s son. It was God�s eternal plan for him to experience first hand the alienation and turmoil of humanity. He would be despised and rejected and sold for mere silver. Then he would be tortured and executed like a common thief.

This is where John comes into the plan. It was his place to prepare the way for people to recognize and receive him. To be a voice crying in a wilderness of alienation and sin, "Prepare the way of the Lord." So that hearts separated from God could once again walk in fellowship as in the beginning, and so that the turmoil in peoples hearts and lives could be healed and transformed into peace.

When did it all start? Well, from God�s perspective that question is irrelevant. Sure, God planned to save humanity from the beginning when the first sin was committed. And God sent his Son at a particular time and place to be born the King of the Jews. And God send John in 28 AD to prepare the way for his son. And God will send His Son again on that Day of Judgment and salvation at the end of time.

But from God�s eternal perspective all those events are part of a single act of Salvation. So when does it all start? It starts here and now. Jesus came into the world 2000 years ago, but Jesus also comes into our lives each day. Jesus will come to you in some special way in the days ahead so get ready.

Jesus is coming to bring judgment and reconciliation. He will see our sin and offer the healing of his blood shed on the cross for all time. So get ready for Jesus is a-comin�. Be prepared to meet your maker in your times of devotion and prayer this season. Cleanse you hearts and get ready to hear his voice in the music and his face in the decorations of the Christmas season.

It all starts here and now. And I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness. "Prepare the way of the Lord. Jesus is coming to judge and heal. So get ready!"